test-drb October 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

175 participants
1141 discussions

by fauradon＠pclink.com

Hi, This week end I found a TI 99/4a Beige brand new in the box never used accompanied with the epansion box (my arms still hurt from carrying this stuff) and a box of software for it (Microsoft multiplan among other word processors and databases) Apparently it came from a dealer since it also had a bunch of deal training material, price lists and flyers with Bill Cosby. Also got a couple of color pong machines: a Radio shack and a Ricochet. A National Semiconductor ADVERSARY (pong style?) And a Sharp PC-1500A with the printer and cassette interface, it was used as an embedded system for a Pulmonary Analysis Computer (pretty good example of interfacing a pocket computer to the external world) the extra hardware has a D/A and A/D converter pretty cool. Does any one have docs on the pc-1500? Any info would be appreciated. A web search didn't bring anything more than the specs, I would like to find programming info if that is possible. Thanks Francois ------------------------------------------------------------- Visit the desperately in need of update Sanctuary at: http://www.pclink.com/fauradon

25 years, 9 months

Mainframes vs PCs (was Re: discrete transistors)

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

According to the November '95 Popular Science, p88: The Apollo 11 guidance computer had 2K of RAM and 36K of ROM, and barreled along at 1 MHz. The circuits consisted of 24 modules contained in two trays, weighed 70 pounds, and required 70 W of power. To issue commands, the astronauts used a unique interface that consisted of a number pad and an LED readout. Commands were issued in "noun-verb" format; the astronauts would key in numbers that were codes for commands like "display velocity" or "change program". Nasa computers on the ground were somewhat more powerful, but not much, according to Merritt Jones, a space physicist for the Gemini and Apollo programs who now works for IBM. " The machine used in the mission control center, which was the most powerful commercial machine at the time, could execute 1 million instructions per second," he recalls. "It cost $4 million and took up most of the room. It had one megabyte of memory." next comes a description of modern computers and how laptops can do '90 Million Instructions per second and is small enough...' >things into and out of memory rather than bothering the CPU with all that. >To facilitate this the mainframes typically have fairly complex snooping >caches for effective management of paging activity. > >The Crays and ConnectionMachines have, in the past, had the advantage of >being vector processors where typical mainframes were often SIMD machines >at best and simple pipelines at worst. Microprocessors caught up with the >SIMD wave with multi-ALU pipelining, and with the Katmai and AMD-K7 they >will get many of the vector features that made so-called "super computers" >so fast. > >If you build a "PC" (Pentium II class) with 256MB of SDRAM and dual PCI >based fast/wide SCSI controllers running to a striped RAID array of "good" >SCSI disks you can "beat" a lot of mainframes. Of course you best them with >a $10,000 PC. > >Back to classic computers, it has been said, perhaps apocryphylly(sp?), >that "My laptop has more computer power than NASA used to put men on the >moon." While it may be true, I've never actually seen a description of the >computer resources available to NASA between 1962 and 1969. Does anyone on >the list have that information? > >--Chuck > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

25 years, 9 months

Units of measure (Was: discrete transistors

by roblwill＠usaor.net

MHz is MegaHertz. mHz is milliHertz. I think mhz is a typo. -- -Jason (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#-1730318 ---------- > From: Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> > To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> > Subject: Units of measure (Was: discrete transistors > Date: Monday, October 19, 1998 7:36 PM > > > Eventually, the early 386s were only 16mhz! > > Is mhz == MegaHertz or is mhz == milliHertz? > If so, that could be why this machine seems SO slow. > > > -- > Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com > XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com > 2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366 > Berkeley, CA 94710-2219 >

25 years, 9 months

TOPS-20

by mbg＠world.std.com

> Uh, screen does in fact allow you to do this. Sorry, from your description it didn't sound like it would do it at all... I'll have to take a look at it... Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

25 years, 9 months

UK VCF (Was: Re: Any *really* homebrewing going on?)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Oct 19, 12:27, Kevan Heydon wrote: > On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, I wrote: > > > > It would be interesting just to see how many collectors in the UK (and > > mainland Europe) would be interested in going to a UK VCF. > Well the replies never really got started. I only got five replies, all > said they were interested. I can only conclude that there are not that > many UK collectors on this list. And we can probably guess who they were, too. Ah, well, it makes it easier to budget for a barbecue, I guess... -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 9 months

Belly laugh on eBay

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

haha, that is a laugh! 2011 is a 1992 era 80286-10 IBM PS/1. has a good cuteness factor, but rather closed in design though. In a message dated 10/19/98 2:40:02 PM US Eastern Standard Time, kaikal(a)MICROSOFT.com writes: > This item description on eBay says it all: > > 36111353 Collectible IBM PS/1 Type 2011 > > BWAHAHAHAHA!

25 years, 9 months

discrete transistors

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< What about 386s? Did Intel outrun the mainframes with the 386, or were Eventually, the early 386s were only 16mhz! < there discrete transistor machines with better performance than that? < BTW, what did the Cray I use? A lot 300+ boards of ECL logic. ECL was the fasest of the fast for that time and it's density was relatively low. It was so densely packed that the cooling was embedded refrigeration! Allison

25 years, 9 months

discrete transistors

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< can not compete with a high-end monolithic microprocessor. The laws of < physics conspire against it. They do. There are ways around that. Tricks like massively parallel or very wide words to name a few. < Motorola claims to have started shipping ECL integrated circuits in 1962 In 1967 I got my first MECL 1000 parts to play with as they had dropped to hobby prices, still have a few. They were difficult to work with and fast by any standrd then. FYI: I was applying them as linear devices. I do know for sure that in '64 those parts existed but they were somthing like $20-30 each. Then again I remember seeing the infamous 709 opamp the early 60s at $120 each! I may add that a friend gave me the "engineering junkbox" from his company in 1968 and the parts in there besides transistors included RTL (914, 923, MC7xx) and a few opamps of the 709/741 series. I learned a lot working with those parts. I was only lucky kid! < Why were people still building computers using discrete transistors for < years after that? Many of the high-end computers used discrete < implementations of non-saturating logic that was very similar to ECL. The bias points for ECL were hard to control and level shifts were a source of errors. Also they were more expensive than RTL and the DTL (pre ttl) parts. Also ECL requires transmission line style layout and that would not be widely adopted until three or more layer PCBs would be in use. There were also those that objected to the power required by ECL and it's resulting heat (back to the bias shift problem). The problem is once ICs made an appearance in the mid 60s they were being used but only where cost justified them (they werent cheap! nor were they fast!). Another item forgotten is the design cycles were measured in years then, so by time the massive transistor machines started running the SSI ICs were starting down the price curve. In practical terms the first massive transistor machine was the TX2 an experimental one of a kind. It would only about 10 years later when the first IC machines started appearing in the late '60. By then the 1nS/ft propagation limit was becomming obvious to designers (ask Cray!). Allison

25 years, 9 months

discrete transistors

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< A 486 is certainly faster in terms of CPU horsepower. But a 486 < has no I/O horsepower whatsoever. Nor does any sort of Pentium. Problem with most all of the high power processors. The VAX series were only ok in that respect and were better if there were external IOPs. < It's certainly *possible* to add intelligent I/O channels to an x86 mach The hottest machine I've played with was a hacked xerox XP12 laser printer controller. It was a 8mhz 8086 and a 8089(IOP). It could beat any 8086 system cold (using s100 and multibus systems as standard). Later I would see a 8086 multibus system with two 8089s running CPM-86 and it was far faster than the then new AT. The speed of the IO systems and it's peripherals is everything. I know this from building a multiprocessing/multitasking system in the early 1980s using four z80s in a loosely coupled SMP. The array of z80s, 8085s and 8749s around them to do IO was where the real performance could be found. Allison

25 years, 9 months

discrete transistors

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< But you can't build a *system* with that overall density. Long standing problem but, the military did have machine approacing that density. Consider that once you got over a certain size it was less imporant to be small. < used in the 7000-series computers to SLT (hybrid integrated circuits on < ceramic substrates, first used in System/360 in 1964). Yep. I disagree that a 286 had more raw cpu performance than some of the big transistor machines. I still remember the BOCES/LIRICS KA10 running some 300 users. I've never seen a 286 run more than 4. Same applies to IBM 2060s. Allison

25 years, 9 months

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test-drb October 1998